Who lost the debate Monday night? The American people.
Don’t let that split-screen fool you. Trump and Clinton are expressing the same ideas with different rhetoric – especially with regard to the black community. For instance, Trump’s call for “law and order” and “stop and frisk” is overtly racist. But most people fail to understand that Clinton’s call for “gun control” is also racist.
Historically, gun control has not been race-neutral. The Second Amendment prohibited black folks from owning guns because slave masters feared they would use them in revolts. In 1857, the Supreme Court in Dred Scott vs. Sanford stated that the “black man has no rights that the white man is bound to respect.” Part of the reason was because they feared blacks would start holding “public meetings on political affairs and to keep and carry arms wherever they want.”
In the 1960s, the Black Panthers would tote loaded weapons as they followed the police. This compelled California Governor Ronald Reagan to sponsor laws that prohibited guns in public. The “race riots” of the 1960s were blamed on the availability of guns – so Congress passed more gun control laws. Gun control has always been about containing the threats posed by blackness.
Clinton wants to keep guns out of the hands of “criminals” – but in America, blacks are disproportionately targeted by the criminal justice system. This is anti-black. More gun control laws will only give the police MORE power to terrorize black communities. In this regard, Trump and Clinton are similar: they both think blackness is a threat that needs to be contained.
Zone of Non-being 
September 30, 2016 at 7:35 pm
Man.. You slaughtered this. Excellent posts. Trump and Clinton are two sides of the same coin. Antithesis + thesis = Synthesis. That’s why voting on a national level, is a waste of time. Black people with legal guns getting murdered by the police, further cements your argument.
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October 1, 2016 at 1:56 am
Thanks bro!
You are right. There can be no substantial change inside the corporate, anti-black system. We have to organize outside of this.
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October 1, 2016 at 2:36 am
No problem. A lor of the issues can be solved through group economics.
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October 1, 2016 at 1:41 pm
Ujamaa! You already know!
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September 30, 2016 at 9:02 pm
What kills me is the us “American” people do not realize how easy it is to get a firearm. The United States profits from gun smuggling like nobodies business. I’m all for self defense, but handguns were only made to kill humans. I understand we have hunters and rural folks who survive off of hunting. So rifles and shotguns for big game. As most of the constitution was not made for the Black American, we must realize that our rights comes with “ifs ands and buts.”
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October 1, 2016 at 1:59 am
Absolutely! It’s like the recent police shooting of Philando Castile. This brother had a gun on him in an open-carry state. He was following the officer’s commands, and was behaving non-aggressively. He was killed anyway. Did the NRA rush to his defense? Absolutely not. The right to bear arms only exists for white people.
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October 1, 2016 at 12:22 pm
100% agreed my brotha
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October 1, 2016 at 9:57 pm
Agreed! Clinton words her in a better way, but we caught that.
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October 8, 2016 at 3:32 pm
Clinton speaks diplomatically. Trump speaks bigot- amatically. Both of them are dangerous.
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October 8, 2016 at 3:45 pm
For real! Clinton is a Republicrat. She doesn’t use the dangerous rhetoric that Trump does, but her past is most certainly dangerous. I wish people would see that
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October 8, 2016 at 4:20 pm
She’s certainly a Rat! It’s only in the last couple of months that an American friend told me EXACTLY what she’s been up to: fraud, perverting the course of justice (did someone say she was a lawyer?) And she has the temerity to run for president.
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October 8, 2016 at 4:25 pm
For real! It’s absurd. Trump is bad, but I would not jump to the conclusion that he is worse than her. I mean: all he has is rhetoric. All he has is some foul sounding ideas and promises. Clinton has rhetoric AND experiencing carrying out foul policies. Just look at who she calls her mentors (Madeline Albright, Henry Kissinger) and look at who is supporting her (G.HW.Bush, and other neocons). She has helped kill millions upon millions of people in the Middle East. The fact that she has this zombie-like trance over people maddens me deep down in my spirit. If people would only bother to do a little bit of research they would understand. But they are so busy running away from Trump that they assume she MUST be better. Smh
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October 8, 2016 at 4:33 pm
I really empathise with you. I can see you feel very strongly about this and with good reason to. Politics is dangerous territory: there seems to be more people in it for the power they can wield rather than for ethical government. There is just so much corruption surrounding this campaign and it is hard to see how to make things better. Unfortunately if you don’t have money and know the “right” people all you can do is voice an opinion. There is no way that you change anything.
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October 8, 2016 at 4:49 pm
Yes, it is frustrating. Money has ruined politics but now we need more money just to get a politician into office who can get money out of politics! It is a total perversion of democracy. This is part of the reason why so many people don’t vote … they feel hopeless. We need to organize en masse against the system to overturn it. We cannot continue to sit idly by as they play with our livelihoods.
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October 3, 2016 at 12:48 am
I’m sorry. I know I’m white, female and Australian rather than American but if you look at gun control outside the context of American life and culture, it’s the only sane response for any country that cares about its people. As we found during the Port Arthur massacre, one madman with a couple of high powered automatic weapons can stalk and murder dozens of innocent people, including the elderly and tiny children. How many more children have to die in the US before this obsession with guns is seen for what it is – madness. 😦
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October 3, 2016 at 1:00 am
Thank you for your contribution!
I agree with you that America has an obsession with guns. But just to be clear: nothing in this post should be construed to mean that I am opponent of gun control. I agree with Secretary Clinton that we need more sensible gun laws from the top down. There are enough guns on the street to supply each citizen with one! This is an absurd and, as you said, dangerous obsession.
But my commentary here is concerned with another, hidden facet of the gun control debate: racism. There is a qualitative difference between a white man with a gun and a black man with a gun. In July, a black man by the name of Philando Castile was murdered by the police. He was carrying a gun in an open-carry state. Did the NRA come to his defense? No. The Second Amendment is only worth fighting for when it is a white victim. The ghost of slavery still haunts us to this day – and that is my only concern in this post.
Thank you for the follow =)
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October 3, 2016 at 2:27 am
Thank you, I’m relieved you didn’t take my comment the wrong way, and I do see your point about the racism hidden in the gun debate. I don’t know what the answer is, but for what it’s worth I’m one of those who believe black lives matter – both in the US and here in Australia, amongst our indigenous populations. 😦
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October 3, 2016 at 3:50 am
I agree – I do not know what the answer is, either. It seems as though the more politicians talk about gun control, the more guns flood the street.
I am glad you support BLM! I have read very little about the treatment of the indigenous people in Australia, but I know it is awful. I plan to study this more in depth very soon.
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October 3, 2016 at 6:24 am
Sadly in Australia, most indigenous people are ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Things are changing for the better, but much too slowly. 😦
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October 3, 2016 at 1:07 pm
Wow, thank you for cluing me in!
That is definitely the mindset here in America too: the indigenous people have been rendered invisible, even though they have a mortality rate that is through the roof.
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October 4, 2016 at 6:10 am
It seems uncaring neglect is not a purely Australian thing then. 😦
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October 22, 2016 at 7:51 pm
Amazing insight and one that I hadn’t considered. Here in NZ we have very strict gun control, something I appreciate however I hadn’t considered the racial element to it. I almost changed my mind but when I thought deeper about it here there are a few elements that make it work. Firstly and most importantly, guns are NOT for self defense. If you apply for a licence and give the reason as self defence, expect the firearms control office to toss you out in the street. Guns need to be secured and the cops inspect your premises before issuing the licence. For you shoot an intruder expect to be taken to court. Also, if you use a gun when committing a crime, expect to be put at the top of the list. It’s not just gun control, it’s a who system.
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October 22, 2016 at 8:26 pm
Hello HT! Great commentary! Greetings from the United States!
I agree with what you are saying about gun control. In the grand scheme, there does need to be common sense gun control legislation. I am just highlighting the racial dynamic you mentioned that often goes unnoticed.
When the late great Martin Luther King, Jr. had his house bombed in the 1950s, he applied for a gun permit from the State of Alabama. He was denied – most certainly because he was black.
Here in America, gun violence is higher in the Southern portion of the country – primarily because there is a “culture of honor” down there. Meaning: violence is the expected response to personal problems.
So I think that we have to take several factors into account before gun control can be effective.
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October 23, 2016 at 10:16 pm
The best way to approach this is head on. I understand from the news that a lot of voting laws seem to have black disenfranchisement behind them but they are complex. How would you see such gun control playing out? I can imagine that it would need to be more than a licensing regime and that like voter disenfranchisement it would rely on an understanding of the demographics. I assume previous incarceration would be used. Traffic offences could be involved? Would having a drivers licence be a requirement? The reason I ask is that I was planning a short story based on the recent events along similar lines but I’ve become stuck.
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October 23, 2016 at 11:27 pm
Hey my friend. Great questions. Allow me to explain why I believe you are stuck on this topic: we, as a people, are forced to discuss guns and gun control in a very limited framework. The first thing we need to do is take a step back and stop focusing on the gun.
The problem of gun violence and the need for gun control is NOT about law. We can pass all the laws we want, but they are nothing without enforcement. Laws are irrelevant without the threat of violence from the police and/or the military (i.e. prison, death penalty, war, atomic bomb, etc).
I am sure you have heard the phrase “law and order”. Well, usage of/threat of using the gun provides that order. The gun is what holds people in check and in place.
The gun is the symbol for our political, economic, and social way of life. Our way of life is based on racial, economic, and sexual hierarchy. The gun simply maintains these systems. We must never conflate the symbol with the symbolized. Instead of focusing on the gun, we should focus on what the gun is used to do: maintain hierarchy.
Historically, there was hierarchy without the existence of guns (firearms were created in China in the 13th century – and classism, sexism, and the seeds of racism had already been solidified/planted). By that logic, a total abolition of guns will not guarantee a decrease in oppression – it will just end “gun violence”. Oppressors will always find new weapons – so we should stop focusing on their means and start focusing on their ends.
We need a complete revolution of thought. The way we relate to ourselves, others, and the environment needs to be unsettled – as we build a society that does not NEED guns. Politicians will always pay lip service to the idea of gun control because this is, at the end of the day, reformist. Changing/eliminating the SYMBOL does not require that the SYMBOLIZED be burned. And that is part of the trickery: we are all having a surface level debate instead of going deeper.
I hope this helps.
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January 24, 2017 at 12:18 pm
You’re right-I just wrote a post about *United States v. Cruikshank* This ruling was the Supreme Court’s biased response to the events in Louisiana, where white Democrats murdered black Republicans who were attempting to exercise their right to vote.
I see your point about stop and frisk, but I still don’t think that means Trump is racially motivated.
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January 24, 2017 at 1:21 pm
Hello. Thank you for reading and commenting. I just checked out your piece on gun control as it relates to the Supreme Court decision. I would like to point out a few theoretical blind-spots in your analysis:
First, the bedrock of all gun control discussion and legislation – the 2nd Amendment – was animated by white supremacy and anti-blackness. As you so eloquently detail, the right to keep and bare arms was ratified in 1791 – and, most notably, it did not expand to slaves. As early as 1751, before the US was established, slaves were prohibited from owning weapons via the French Black Codes.
Gun control has always, first and foremost, been concerned with containing the specter of a black revolution. Even in Dred Scott v Sanford in 1857 – almost 20 years before Cruikshank – the Court explicitly stated that blacks could not be citizens BECAUSE then they would be able to get guns.
We see this in the 60s with the Black Panther Party, as well: groups of strong black men protecting their communities from police terrorism by toting weapons in public. Ronald Reagan and Congress passed a law which incriminating open carrying to shut all of this down.
The argument that Trump is not racially motivated demonstrates an inability to comprehend what racism actually is. In short, denying racism is the new racism. Check out this link for a deeper understanding of what racism is and how it functions as an invisible structure: https://zoneofnonbeing.wordpress.com/2016/10/25/denying-racism-is-the-new-racism/
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January 24, 2017 at 12:20 pm
Here is the link to my post:
https://wildernesswell.wordpress.com/2017/01/24/to-carry-or-not-to-carry/
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February 24, 2017 at 5:52 pm
Another nicely written, well-put piece. Keep reporting. Keep doing what you’re doing.
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February 25, 2017 at 2:59 am
Thank you!
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